The Song of Roland is a French epic dating from about 1040 to 1115CE. It recounts the chivalric and heroic deeds of Charlemagne, based on the historical but minor eighth century battle of Roncevaux. Roland was a nephew of Charlemagne. The author of the legend is unknown, although his name may have been Turoldus. The epic is considered the first masterpiece of literature in the French vernacular, written as a medieval chanson de geste (song of deeds) in four thousand lines. In spite of, or perhaps because of, its status in French literature, it was not translated into English until the late 19th century.

This edition was translated from Old French by Isabel Butler.

This edition was designed by Bruce Rogers, one of the great book designers of the twentieth century. Seven illustrations derived from the compartments of the window of Charlemagne in the Cathedral de Chartres depict events in the legend of Roland. These have been drawn and printed and then colored by hand in blues, reds, greens and yellows after the stained glass of the window. Five roundels are placed throughout the text. A large arched head-piece vignette tops the opening text as if a dome. The text is printed in double columns with marginal notes in brown and rubricated in gilt as page headings. The title-page is printed in red and black with a printer’s device in color.

Typefaces are French bâtarde and civilité. Bâtarde was a blackletter script used in France, the Burgundian Netherlands and Germany in the 14th and 15th centuries. The script was a decorative chancery or legal hand dating from the 13th century. Civilité is a type designed by Robert Granjon as a response to the Italian italic. Granjon based the font on a cursive Gothic script. The typeface was first used in 1559 for a book on manners written for children by Desiderius Erasmus.

Printed on American handmade paper. Bound in quarter vellum over printed boards in a fleurs-de-lys pattern taken from paintings in the crypt at Chartres. To achieve an antiqued effect, Rogers rubbed a red paste wash over the printed paper.

Bruce Rogers (1870-1957) was born in Indiana. As a young man, he moved to Boston, where, in 1895, he began working at the Riverside Press, a printing department of the Houghton, Mifflin publishing company. Rogers began designing trade books. In 1900, a Department of Special Bookmaking was created for the production of fine press editions, with Rogers in charge. He designed more than four hundred books during his career. Of those, he chose thirty (Roger’s Thirty), at the request of an interviewer, that he considered successful book works. The Song of Roland was one of his choices.

George Mifflin, the head of Houghton, Mifflin was so proud of Roland that he sent a copy to then-President Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt was so impressed he visited the press to look at other of Rogers’ works. He wrote, “…it seemed to me far ahead, and almost like some of the very beautiful printing[s]…at the end of the Fifteenth Century.”

Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ, the first printed edition of the Gospels in Arabic, is the first production by the Typographia Medicea press, a printing house established by Pope Gregory XIII and Cardinal Ferdinando de’ Medici in order to promote and distribute Christian scripture to the Near East. Two issues of this work were printed, apparently simultaneously. One had Arabic-only text and was printed in an edition of 4,000 copies. The other, here, was printed in Arabic with interlinear Latin, in an edition of 3,000 copies. The Arabic-only edition has the date 1590 on the title-page, but 1591 in the colophon. Allegedly, a few of the bi-lingual copies were published with a preliminary leaf stating, “Sanctum Dei evangelium arab.-lat.” No known copies of this half-title are known to exist and this leaf may never have existed.

With a Latin translation ascribed to one Antonius Sionita, the book was edited by Giovanni Battista Raimondi (1540-ca. 1614), an esteemed Orientalist and professor of mathematics at the College of Sapienza in Rome. Raimondi travelled extensively in the Near East and was knowledgeable, if not fluent, in Arabic, Armenian, Syrian and Hebrew. His fame rests with the editorship of the Typographica Medicea. He and French typographer Robert Granjon, who created the Arabic font used in this work, were both recognized then and now for the earliest and best attempts to print Arabic in Europe.

Illustrated with 149 woodcuts, printed from 68 blocks, engraved by Leonardo Parasole (ca. 1587-ca. 1630). The artist, Antonio Tempesta (1555-1630), studied under Santi di Tito and Flemish artist Joannes Stradanus at the Accademia del Disgno. Tempesta later worked with Stradanus and Giorgio Vasari (1511-1574) on the interior decoration of the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence. Tempesta then travelled to Rome, where he fulfilled several commissions, including frescoes for Pope Gregory XIII in the Vatican and panel paintings for the Villa Farnese. Many of the woodcuts are signed with the initials “AT” (Antonio Tempesta) and “LP” (Leonardo Parasole). The illustrations in Bashārat Yasuʻ al-Masīḥ are excellent examples of Tempesta’s work, noteworthy for their clear composition and narrative of the episodes depicted.

Be that as it may, the illustrations may have played a part in the failure of this book to reach, let alone convince, its intended Islamic audience. Islam forbade religious illustration and these may have made the Gospels appear less than sacred, if not sacrilegious, to Arab Muslim readers.

To be fair, the Christian church had a long tradition of presenting their message with religious illustrations. As far back as the sixth century, Pope Gregory defended the value of such imagery, arguing that pictures were useful for teaching the faith to the unconverted and for conveying sacred stories to the illiterate. According to Bede, St. Augustine introduced Christianity to the heathen King Ethelbert of Kent, upon landing on the British Isles, by presenting a picture of Christ painted on a wooden panel. He then began to preach.

The Pope seems also to have denied the fact that more Christians lived in the Ottoman Empire than in any other European state. The first printed book in Arabic was a Book of Hours, probably intended for export to Syrian Christians. But these Christians were adherents to the Eastern Orthodox Church, not the Pope’s Roman Catholic Church. Christianity was hardly unknown in the predominantly Muslim Ottoman and Persian Empires. The Ottomans were, however, Christian Europe’s major military and political concern.

In addition to printing the Gospels in Arabic, Ferdinando de’ Medici charged Raimondi with printing “all available Arabic books on permissable human science which had no religious content in order to introduce the art of printing to the Mohamedan community.” Despite the superb quality — textually, typographically, and artistically — of its work, the Medici press was an economic failure and went bankrupt in 1610. The fact is that Raimondi displayed little understanding of Islamic culture. Although Raimondi’s selection of publications was not aimed at European scholars, his choices stimulated a study of the Near East in Europe.

It would be more than a century after the Medici Press closed that Ibrahim Muteferrika, a Hungarian convert to Islam, was given permission by Sultan Ahmed III (1673-1736) to open his printing house in Istanbul, in 1729. This was not the first printing press established in the Near East, but it was the first Eastern press to print in Arabic using movable type.

Arabic and small roman type text within double-ruled borders. Colophon and printer’s note to reader in Latin. Colophon decorated with large woodcut arabesque.

Rare Books copy bound in full, eighteenth century, sprinkled calf, with a gilt spine containing two burgundy morocco labels, and decorative gilt borders on the covers. The first leaf is shaved and reinserted on contemporary paper. This leaf contains four Waqf stamps, indicating the authentication of the Arabic translation. As in most copies, our copy lacks a title page. A former owner’s penciled inscription, “Alessio Dra Saggeto/en Aleppo 1871,” is on the free front end paper. Another signature, in ink, is at the top of the back free end paper.

For more on the woodcuts, see Field, Richard S. Antonio Tempesta’s Blocks and Woodcuts for the Medicean 1591 Arabic Gospels, NE662 T45 F54 2001, in the rare book collections.

From the publisher’s website: [Mrs. Delany] is an “imagined collaboration between Mrs. Mary Delany (1700-1788), an English widow, woman of accomplishment, and creator of imaginative botanical ‘paper mosaics’ and Herr Ernst Haeckel (1852-1911), a distinguished and controversial German biologist and artist who devoted much of his time to the study and rendering of single-celled creatures.”

Cut paper image of a microscopic organism affixed to frontispiece with another cut-paper image affixed to the recto of the same sheet; eleven cut-paper interpretations of microscopic organisms tipped on to captioned plates; tipped-in cut-paper initials, numerous smaller cut-paper decorations. The paper cuttings are adapted from Ernst Haeckel’s Die Radiolarien (1862) and Kunstformen der Natur (1899-1904). They are cut from a variety of papers, including Yatsuo, Kozuke, mulberry, Gifu, Kitikata, and Kiraku kozo from Japan; Ingres and unidentified wove from Europe; and Reg Lissel handmade papers from Canada. Some were cut from papers previously marbled in the Turkish or Suminigashi styles. Some were dyed by the papermaker; some were dyed or otherwise hand-colored for this book. The cuttings are mounted on one of Arches text wove (white), Arches MBM Ingres (black) or Hahnemuhle Ingres (black).

Bound in full polished morocco, ruled and stamped decoratively in red and gilt with a gilt-lettered spine by Claudia Cohen. Marbled endpapers. Issued in orange clamshell case with a gilt-lettered spine label.

Edition of twenty-five copies plus six hors de commerce, each signed by the author, printer, and binder. Rare Books copy is XXII.

Originally published in 1859, this was William Morris’s first published poem in book form. The poem, about the reaffirmation of a doubted faith, was illustrated by Helen Marguerite O’Kane (1879-1927) and printed in black and red by her husband, Clarke Conwell. Decorated borders and two full-page pictures illustrate the text. The typesetting of this book is somewhat controversial. Early critics called it ostentatious. Later, others argued that the page size carries the bold, striking type well. Printed on handmade paper. This copy is bound in full green crushed morocco. The spine is gilt with raised bands decorated with gilt borders with floral designs. Leather inlays are on the front and back covers. Gilt also borders the inside covers over marbled endpapers. Edition of one hundred and eighty copies.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson’s now-famous Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was intended solely for Alice Liddell and her two sisters. Dodgson made the story up to entertain the bored children during a series of outings. Alice asked Dodgson to write the story down. Dodgson presented his manuscript to Alice as a Christmas gift in 1864. Friend and novelist Henry Kingsley saw the manuscript and encouraged Dodgson to publish the book. Dodgson consulted another friend, George MacDonald.

Macdonald, a popular writer of fairy tales and fantasy, read the story to his children, who thoroughly approved of it. Macdonald’s six-year-old son is said to have declared that he “wished there were 60,000 copies of it.”

Dodgson prepared the manuscript for publication, expanding the original 18,000 word story to 35,000 words and adding, among other characters and scenes, the Cheshire Cat and “A Mad-Tea Party.”

The first edition included forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel, a cartoonist for the magazine, Punch. The edition of 4,000 copies was released, under the pseudonym “Lewis Carroll,” in time for Christmas in December of 1865, carrying 1866 as the publication date. However, Tenniel and Dodgson disapproved of the quality of the printing. This first printed edition was removed from the market. A few of these printings made their way to the United States.

The book was reprinted and re-released in 1866. By 1884, 100,000 copies had been printed.

In 1931, the work was banned in China by the Governor of Huan Province on the grounds that “Animals should not use human language, and…it [is] disastrous to put animals and human beings on the same level.”

University of Utah copy is in original gilt pictorial cloth bindings. The inside front boards bear two bookplates, one of Harvard scholar Cyril Bathurst Judge (b. 1888), the other of book collector Michael Sharpe. Anonymous donation facilitated by Michael Thompson of Michael R. Thompson Rare Books, Los Angeles, California.

“Better the occasional faults of a government that lives in a spirit of charity than the consistent omissions of a government frozen in the ice of its own indifference.” — Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1936

This book was given to delegates at the 1936 Democratic convention, held that year in Philadelphia. It contains information such as the party’s platform, election results, and statements from the President, his cabinet members, other important members of his administration, and the first lady.

This copy belonged to Wilson McCarthy (1884-1956), a judge who sat on Utah’s Third District Court in 1919. He left the bench a year later and earned a fortune as a private practice attorney. In 1926 he was elected to the Utah state senate. A lifelong Democrat, he was appointed by Republican President Herbert Hoover to the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1932. A year later, he began a career in banking in San Francisco. In 1934, the RFC asked him to take control of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad, which had just defaulted on a $10 million loan. It took McCarthy and others nearly two decades to rehabilitate the company. In 1937 alone, $18 million was pumped into the property.

Under McCarthy’s administration the Rio Grande built more than 1100 bridges and laid more than two million railroad ties. By the end of World War II, the railroad’s revenues had increased from $17 million to $75 million per year. During this time, McCarthy anchored the Rio Grande between Salt Lake City (his birthplace) and Denver. Freight time between these two points dropped from 54 hours to just under 24 hours. McCarthy, in conjunction with the Western Pacific Railroad began the “California Zephyr,” a luxury service between Chicago and the Bay Area. He also added the train’s signature vista-dome cars.

In addition to his turn-around of the fortunes of the railroad, McCarthy helped bring Geneva Steel to Utah. On the day of his funeral, every Rio Grande train stopped, their crews observing two minutes of silence.

This book was also published, with some variations, under the title The Democratic National Convention, 1936. The book contains dozens of contemporary advertisements, many in color. Illustrated with nineteen full-page portraits and dozens of in-text half-tones and illustrations, and a facsimile of the Constitution. Bound in full brown morocco gilt, watered silk endpapers, top edge gilt. Limited edition of unknown quantity. University of Utah copy is no. 1464, stamped in gilt “Wilson McCarthy” and signed by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Gift of Wilson McCarthy.

University of Utah copy presentation copy inscribed to John Skelton and dated April of 1870. Skelton was a Scottish author and friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. This is one of only a few copies personally inscribed to Rossetti’s close friends. Original green cloth boards with gilt title to spine and floral gilt designs by the author on spine and boards. The motif is continued on the endpapers.

A LETTER ON THE ABOLITION OF THE SLAVE TRADE…
William Wilberforce (1759-1833)
London: Printed by Luke Hansard & Sons for T. Cadell and W. Davis, 1807
First edition

“Old concessions are retracted; exploded errors are revived; and we find we have the greater part of our work to do over again.”

William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) began their mutual battle against the British Parliament toward the abolition of slavery in 1787. In 1791, they were defeated by the interests of West Indian planters. In 1806, Wilberforce and Clarkson began the fight again. In A Letter, Wilberforce described the evidence and arguments against the slave trade that he had accumulated over the course of two decades. It was published on January 31, 1807. On 25 March 1807 royal assent was given to a bill abolishing slave trade with the introduction of the Abolition Bill in the House of Lords. It was the first major victory for the abolition movement. The bill was carried by 267 votes. According to an account by Clarkson, the house rose to its feet and cheered. The victory represented a battle carried on through word of mouth and the printing press. But the war to abolish slavery was far from over. Wilberforce continued to work to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. The fight did not conclude until July 26, 1833, when Parliament voted to abolish slavery. Wilberforce died three days later. University of Utah copy has armorial bookplate of “Sam. De La Cherois Crommelin” and family signature on endpaper. Bound in contemporary tree calf, gilt flat spine with black morocco label.

De Rerum Natura is the only surviving work of Lucretius. It is a didactic poem in six books, in which the poet expounds on the theory of Epicurus. The object was to abolish belief that the gods intervened in the world and that the soul could experience punishment in an afterlife. Lucretius demonstrated that the world is, instead, governed by mechanical laws of nature. He described the soul as mortal and posited that it perishes with the body. This is the first edition of the “Wakefield” edition, the edition by Gilbert Wakefield (1756-1801). Wakefield was a biblical scholar. The son of a vicar, he entered Jesus College, Cambridge, through a scholarship. He studied mathematics and the classics. Although he took orders, he left the ministry and the Church of England and became a Unitarian. He earned his living as a tutor while writing controversial pamphlets attacking the government. He was imprisoned for two years for the publication of a pamphlet titled, “A Reply to some Parts of the Bishop of Landoff’s Address,” in which he defended the French Revolution. To support himself, he published a translation of the New Testament (1792), companion editions to Horace (1794) and Virgil (1796), an edition with commentary of Greek tragedies (1794), an annotated edition of Alexander Pope’s Homer (1796), and this, his Lucretius. He published his De Rerum Natura at his own expense. The book established Wakefield as a leading British scholar. The large paper, folio edition was mostly destroyed by a fire in the printing-office in which they were stored. Engraved portrait of Gilbert Wakefield on frontispiece. Bound in contemporary straight-grained black morocco, panelled covers with broad blind-tooled borders and gilt edges, spine with broad gilt rules and blindstamped decoration. Edition of fifty copies.

Bound from the monthly issues, with the original wrappers and ads bound in. Many of the wrappers have a contemporary ownership signature. The issues were illustrated with forty engraved plates by the Pre-Raphaelite artist, John Everett Millais (1829-1896). University of Utah copy is bound in late nineteenth-century straight-grain morocco over marbled boards, gilt spines, top edges gilt.